Your Vote Counts!

To place your vote for the People's Choice 2D and 3D Awards, valued at $12,500 each - please login to your account. You may vote for as many pieces as you like, but please vote only once per piece, please.

Voter Login

Artist: Gene Speer | Location: West Columbia, SC

Highway 178 North

I have worked this same format before, with sketches, etchings, monotypes, paintings, and they all seemed to pivot toward that same image spread throughout the countryside-the forgotten billboard in disrepair and what is left of the posted image. Muted colors, torn paper hanging and the actual panels made of tin or wood, rusted or fragmented, creating segmented order out of chaos, coming loose to the point that you do not walk beneath the structure for fear of the billboard coming down on your head. It’s not the same when you walk up close, but at a distance an image appears, an abstract expressionist composition in situ. This is the inspiration for this painting. I want to take them down, as they are, and create a show with just the billboards in a gallery setting. They are great.

Artist Biography

Gene Speer

West Columbia, SC

A native of South Carolina, Gene Speer currently lives in West Columbia. While attending the University of South Carolina where he received his Master's in Art Education, his interest evolved when he was introduced to the processes of monotypes and lithographs. As master printer for the University of South Carolina Department of Arts Atelier program, editions were created with leading South Carolina artists. Canvas yielded a surface and scale that was limited by traditional printmaking methods and new paintings were inspired by a continuing series of prints created. Influenced by Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, and Clayford Still, who were leading interpreters of light and color, the paintings are closely associated with color field paintings, where color is freed from objective context and becomes the subject itself.

ArtFields is a charitable program and event sponsored by Lake City Creative Alliance, which is a federally-recognized Section 501(c)(3) organization located in Lake City, South Carolina. Its mission is to enhance the area schools and greater community through both creative and audience development by fostering a culturally-rich environment, connecting our communities through the arts, integrating arts into the education system, and serving as the lead in cultivating and advancing our region's creative economy.